


Dependency

by Comicsohwhyohwhy



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Ultimates
Genre: ALL THE TONYS, All the Tonycest, M/M, Secret Wars, Ultimate end, and so is 616 Tony, but also pain, but there's some happiness, damn you Bendis, ults Tony is a sad darling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 15:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicsohwhyohwhy/pseuds/Comicsohwhyohwhy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>No better opportunity to make changes to your life than seeing your other self who is apparently doing a better job at being you than you are, right?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Ultimate Tony meets 616 Tony when their universes overlap because of <i>Secret Wars</i>. It goes better than one could have expected. Until it doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dependency

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during the _Secret Wars_ tie-in _Ultimate End_. Inspired by [this preview art](http://comicsohwhyohwhy.tumblr.com/image/119469428103%0A) for _Ultimate End_.
> 
> Please check the notes at the end for other warnings.
> 
> Beta-thanks to [Laire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi)

Tony takes a look at that other Tony, the one with the vibrant blue eyes who always seems a bit on edge around him. The man doesn’t acknowledge him – he simply continues typing into his keyboard, trying to figure out what has happened to their world. Actually, the other Tony − he should start calling him Anthony in his mind, Tony thinks, this is rather confusing − thinks he knows perfectly well what has happened. Tony knows Anthony thinks that Tony has fucked it up and now he has to deal with it and clean up this mess somehow. Tony sighs and starts rubbing the nape of his neck.

Anthony looks up sharply. His eyes trail down and Tony realises he is subconsciously turning his flask over in his hand. Anthony’s eyes narrow, their blue piercing right through Tony’s nonchalance about his drinking.

“Right,” he says, getting impatient. “You’re pretty when you pout, but do me a favour: mind telling me why you are so stand-offish about the drinking?”

Anthony’s lips curl into a smile that looks more like a grimace. “Stand-offish… Are you pretending to be dumb or do you really have no idea what you are doing to yourself with the drinking? Or even why you are doing it?”

“Oh my, why would I drink? You are right, that is such a good question. Let me think.” Tony puts his hand to his chin in a mock thinking gesture. “Hmm… I mean, really, there’s no reason to feel down about things at all, is there? Everything” – he makes a wide gesture with his hand that encompasses the room and the view over a city that has lost most of its inhabitants in the kingdom of a madman that might kill them all should he find out about the mess they made – “is so very lovely, isn’t it?”

Anthony snorts, and it isn’t a cheerful sound. He looks as if he wants to say something, but then he casts his eyes down and gives a minuscule shake of his head. He turns back to his monitor.

Tony feels strangely bereft. After a moment of silence, he clears his throat audibly. “Listen. I was serious when I asked you what you know about the drinking that seems to escape me. You seem to have… lived through certain things.”

Anthony turns back to him. For a moment, he seems about to make a sarcastic remark – Tony can tell by the way his one eyebrow quirks up, it’s funny how well he can already read his other self. Another _him_. Of course he would be able to read him. But Anthony aborts whatever quip he was about to make and instead looks at him seriously.

When he speaks, his voice is low and intense. “The drinking… almost made me lose everything.”

Tony can’t stop himself from laughing bitterly. “In order to lose everything, you first need to have something you could lose, darling.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, Tony realises he has made a mistake. Anthony’s eyes flash angrily. “Spare me the self-pity. I’ve been there. But if we were actually the same person, you’d have tried to pull yourself together long ago, regardless of the things you’ve had to sacrifice. Instead of” – Anthony almost spits out the word – “killing yourself slowly with that stuff you cane in.”

Anthony’s eyes flicker, then he looks down. Tony sees how his hand wanders to the nape of his neck and starts rubbing there, and it again strikes him how very similar their mannerisms are, as if Tony Stark feeling bad about himself were the exact same thing in every goddamned universe. Which might very well be true. There’s got to be some universal constants – Captain America being a self-righteous paragon, Richards being an utter creep, and Tony feeling bad about himself, sounds about right.

Tony looks at Anthony for a moment that seems to stretch on for too long. Anthony is still breathing heavily, upset by the exchange they shared. The flask Tony turns over in his lap makes a grating sound in the silence as it catches on his jeans. When Tony disrupts the silence, his voice sounds oddly loud. “Maybe you’re not me, that’s right. But I think you’re afraid of becoming me at any second. Let me help you with that.”

He gets up and walks towards the window. Tony isn’t exactly sure why he is doing it – but there is something both haunted and haunting in the eyes of his double, something he would like to chase out of them to see it replaced with warmth and respect. He doesn’t know why he cares that much, but apparently he does. Oh well.

Tony opens the window and for one second considers whether it’s a wise idea to throw a flask out of the window of a skyscraper. But the streets below seem to be empty, and anyways, it’s not as if Tony Stark has ever been one to make wise decisions. He holds out his hand and lets the flask drop. It hurtles towards the ground and Tony almost feels dizzy following it with his eyes until it disappears from his sight.

No better opportunity to make changes to your life than seeing your other self who is apparently doing a better job at being you than you are, right? And wearing clothes that are more elegant. Maybe Tony should consider wearing more button-down shirts.

When he turns back to Anthony, the man is looking at Tony and he is actually smiling. Something warm curls in Tony’s stomach.

“So, sourpuss, that better?” Tony asks as he sits back down at his own terminal. Anthony doesn’t answer, but that slight smile is still curling his lips and it’s a lovely thing to look at. They work in companionable silence for the next few hours.

 

***

 

From that moment on, Anthony always smiles at him when he enters their lab. Tony can’t claim it isn’t a sight he enjoys. After all, that Anthony is one hell of a good-looking bastard.

This morning, Anthony seems particularly wound up about some work he’s apparently been doing the night before. He practically jumps at Tony.

“So, I wanted to ask you about multiversal variables. I have this theory that…” He gesticulates wildly as he launches into an explanation.

It takes only moments for them both to be deep in conversation. The next few hours pass in a flurry of productivity.

When Tony next takes note of the time of the day, it’s actually already pitch dark outside. He gives Anthony, who is almost standing pressed up against him as he checks some numbers on a chart, a nudge. “Well, time flies when you’re having fun and all, but I think we might just have spent close to 12 hours juggling those equations, maybe taking a break wouldn’t be amiss.”

Anthony looks at him incredulously, their faces almost close enough to touch. “A break? I stand by what I’ve said before: you’re not me. Clearly not.”

Tony shakes his head and clacks his tongue disapprovingly. “Darling, if I were you, I’d look at this gorgeous, wise person before me and think: ‘If only I were more like him. I should take a break and ask him how he achieves that degree of perfection.’”

Anthony starts laughing and Tony notices he has dimples. His eyes light up in something like genuine happiness and he is simply too gorgeous not to draw in and kiss, so Tony does just that.

There is a moment of reluctance as Anthony raises his hand, apparently tempted to push Tony away – but then he snakes his hand around Tony’s waist instead and starts gently sliding it up and down there. When it travels further down to cup Tony’s ass, a little moan escapes Tony’s mouth and he breaks the kiss to look at Anthony.

Anthony is smiling slightly, his eyes half-lidded. Tony brushes aside those ridiculous little curls falling over Anthony’s forehead as he cradles his face. Anthony’s cheeks are reddened. When he talks, his voice is a little rough. “Okay, let’s have that break, if you insist.”

 

***

 

Tony tries not to drink, and after they start doing whatever it is they are doing he tries even harder. Sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails. At times, when he feels the urge to escape his own head for a while, going up to the lab helps – Anthony with his bright eyes and mind and his deft hands is so much to handle that all other thought is banished from his mind. At other times, even the presence of that other man doesn’t help.

One night Anthony quietly enters the living room and Tony curls in on himself. He is on the sofa, and on the table in front of him there’s a half-empty bottle of whiskey that he snatched out of a forgotten cupboard when he couldn’t sleep, haunted by dreams of Thor falling into the void, of Steve sacrificing his life for nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

Anthony looks at him and Tony knows that shame is etched into his own features. He can’t make out Anthony’s expression, but he is sure there is disgust clearly written there. Maybe Anthony had been right from the beginning and he’s nothing more than a pathetic drunk piece of shit.

Some of what he thought must have escaped Tony’s lips, because he hears Anthony draw in a sharp breath. He isn’t sure what he said, lost in his own little world of dizziness and depression, but whatever it was, he expects a sharp reprimand. But Anthony doesn’t say anything.

Instead, he takes two quick steps towards the sofa and sits down next to Tony. Tony considers recoiling, but Anthony doesn’t let him. He just wraps his arms around Tony and holds him tight.

The next morning, Anthony holds his hair back as he vomits his guts out over the toilet. Through his terrible hangover, Tony feels as if he might just manage to not drink anymore.

 

***

 

When he thinks about it, he has to admit that he still doesn’t know all that much about Anthony, except for the fact that he seems to have a grip on his life – and how was that even possible, he was a Tony Stark, after all. But there was a shadow in his eyes whenever Cap – Tony’s Cap, that is – entered the room. Tony tried to raise the issue, but Anthony had flinched violently and fallen silent.

Tony would like to help him deal with whatever issues he has, but somehow, Anthony always ends up being the one who supports him. Maybe, without all the drinking, the excess and the suicide attempts, Anthony’s emotions are buried so deep that Tony will only ever catch a glimpse of them when Anthony thinks he isn’t looking.

 

***

 

Doom found out. The overlap of universes is no longer a secret. It took a few weeks, a few weeks that Tony would remember as the most precious in his life, but it has happened. And now here they are.

God emperor Doom doesn’t tolerate his subjects toying with time and space. So he has to teach them a lesson.

They are standing in a huge arena that looks vaguely Roman, and if Tony hadn’t just seen that alternate Spider-Man die, it would be almost funny how over the top the whole thing is. There are people in the stands, jeering. Tony shudders.

His other self stands on the other side of the arena, as scantily clad as himself and equipped with the same knife he has in a holster. Tony fleetingly thinks back to when he first met him, only dressed in pyjama pants – Anthony looks just as beautiful as he did then, but he also looks utterly miserable.

Doom, who is sitting on a throne made of bones – how tasteful – gives the signal. So the elimination begins.

Tony doesn’t want this, he wants no part of this sick game. But somehow, he feels it was always going to come to this – nothing nice ever lasts, and all that. Still, he refuses to move and plants his feet firmly on the ground.

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Doom seems to grow impatient. He flicks his fingers and Tony feels his body being pulled forward against his will. Magic cackles in his bones.

He only regains some control over his movements when he is standing right in front of Anthony. There’s a brief respite, but when neither of them begins to fight, Tony can feel his body move of its own volition again. He raises his fist. Anthony doesn’t make a move to defend himself.

Tony’s fist connects with Anthony’s skull with a sickening crunch. Anthony goes down like a stone, a rivulet of blood running down his forehead and trickling into those little curls Tony loves so much. Tony hears himself scream, but it’s as if it were someone else.

He can’t –

He can’t do this –

But his body betrays him again as he lurches himself at Anthony, knife raised. Red energy cackles around him as he brutally pulls back Anthony’s head by the hair, baring his neck. Anthony seems only half-conscious.

Tony is crying, he can feel ugly tears run down his cheeks as Anthony’s eyes try to track him. The knife in his hand quivers.

Anthony’s eyes have found his. Tony looks at him, and suddenly, he is allowed to move the hand that doesn’t hold the knife. Very gently, he brushes Anthony’s forehead, wiping away some of the blood there. And Anthony, damn him, smiles. “It’ll be okay. Just do it. I have a theory.”

Tony laughs hysterically through his tears. “A theory? That you’re immortal? I’d take that, but even that only if it were fact, not theory.”

His hand almost slips as the knife moves closer to Anthony’s throat of its own volition – or rather of Doom’s volition, of course. Anthony nods almost imperceptibly.

Tony screws up his face and screams as he brings his blade down.

***

Tony jerks awake one night in the tower and there are images in his mind. He remembers… something. The evening before, he had been with Cho at that strange interdimensional portal that had all of a sudden collapsed upon itself.

But somehow…

Tony screws up his face in concentration. Something flickers in front of his eyes. Himself… but somehow not. Fighting. An arena of sorts…

Tony can’t piece it together, much as he tries.

Tony shakes his head as if to chase away a fly. It was probably nothing. Just another strange dream.

He takes his flask from his bedside table and hesitates for a moment without knowing why. Then he takes a generous drink to lull himself back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda a major character death for 616 Tony Stark. But also kinda not, as this takes place during Secret Wars and the reality we witness just gets deleted, so nothing of it all will ever have happened and 616 Tony will be happy. Or not.


End file.
